China tweaks policy mix to support growth: QNB

0

01/12/2019 | 07:22pm EST

Send by mail :

Last Name :

Name :

From* :

To* :

(You can enter multiple email addresses separated by commas)

Message :

*Required fields

Tribune News Network
Doha
China’s aim to sustain both rapid growth and financial de-leveraging is becoming ever more challenging as weaker global growth and heightened policy uncertainty create external headwinds, said a report by Qatar National Bank (QNB) on Saturday.
Softer external and domestic demand over the last year has prompted the Chinese government to gradually loose monetary and fiscal policies.
The bank’s analysis delves into the four factors that pinpoint China’s slowdown as well as both monetary and fiscal measures undertaken by authorities to respond to overall demand weakness.
China’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth has slowed in recent quarters, from 6.8 percent in Q1 2018 to 6.5 percent in Q3 2018, the worst quarterly performance since the aftermath of the Great Financial Crisis.
While official figures for Q4 2018 are still not out, coincident indicators are pointing to another soft quarter, the report said.
Growth in retail sales and online retail sales of goods and services are hovering around multi-decade or even all time lows on a year-on-year (y/y) basis. After two months of stagnation around the 50 level, the official manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) figure slid to 49.4 in December 2018 to mark the first contraction in more than two years.
Major indicators point to further weakness over the coming months. New export orders, the subcomponent of the PMI, were also below the 50 level.
The bank said the signals for the external sector are negative. Global demand for Chinese goods looks particularly sluggish as trade data from key bilateral partners was also negative, reaffirming weaker export orders.
South Korean and Taiwanese exports to China contracted as well (13.9 percent and 6.6 percent y/y, respectively) last month. As the two countries are major exporters of industrial inputs to China’s export sector, this may reflect the waning of the so-called front-loading effect in US-China trade, ie, US-based companies increasing imports from China before new tariffs come to effect.
While trade tensions with the US have eased after the Trump-Xi meeting in Buenos Aires, there is still a lot of uncertainty regarding the potential application of additional tariffs to Chinese exports to the US after the 90-day trade truce ends in March 2019, the report said.
All of the above is weighing on the delicate balancing act that the Chinese authorities have been attempting to pull off for much of the last two years. After a long period of debt-fuelled economic growth that risks longer-term financial stability, the government has been trying to rein in excessive credit growth and cut debt levels, the report added.
The policymakers do not want de-leveraging to slow GDP growth much below the 6-6.5 percent target. Between Q4 2016 and Q1 2018, regulatory controls aimed to limit off balance-sheet or ‘shadow’ lending activity and monetary policy delivered tighter domestic liquidity.
Over recent months, demand weakness has tilted the balance more towards the need to sustain economic growth.
On the monetary front, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) has been using several policy tools to ease liquidity. After following most US Federal Reserve (Fed) rate hikes with seven-day open market operations (OMO) reverse repo rate hikes between January 2017 and March 2018, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) has been standing pat despite three additional Fed rate hikes.
The PBOC’s net injection of funds through OMOs has contributed to loosening the seven-day interbank pledged repo average interest rate in recent months.
Moreover, reserve requirement ratios (RRR) to banks, an important instrument to manage the money supply, were lowered by 350 basis points since March 2018, including the most recent action on January 4.
Besides, the PBOC’s in December 2018 decided to create a new Targeted Medium Term Lending Facility (TMLF). The TMLF will provide banks with additional funding to ramp up credit to the private sector, especially to small and medium enterprises.